You have access to this content through your organization’s enterprise subscription to the Aviation Week Intelligence Network (AWIN). Would you like to go there now? Your choice will be remembered until you close your browser.

Opinion: Abolish the Air Force

A version of this article appears in the July 28 edition of Aviation Week & Space Technology.
Institutionally speaking, we are living in 1947. We created military services in order to provide institutional voice to certain kinds of capabilities. Interwar airpower enthusiasts argued that aviators needed an independent service because land and sea commanders could not appreciate the transformative implications of military aviation. Innovation, industry and doctrine would suffer as the ...

SUBSCRIBE TO ACCESS THIS ARTICLE

"Opinion: Abolish the Air Force" is part of Aviation Week & Space Technology’s subscription package.

Subscribe now to read this full article. And by subscribing, you'll also receive full coverage of what's next in technology from the experts trusted by the global aerospace & defense community.

The USAF does seem to be unable to manage its aircraft inventory and acquisition processes. They have forgone significant updates to its legacy fleets in favor of attempting to develop, acquire and operate hugely expensive weapons systems (aircraft) that they can never realistically hope to afford in numbers anywhere close to historic or current levels. Perhaps it is time to rethink the airpower command structure in the US.

Wouldn't a unified airpower command trying to meet the needs of Navy, Marines, Air Force and Army by it's very be a massive cumbersome bureaucratic nightmare as well? in some ways the inter-service rivalries and redundancies serve to enhance our capabilities rather than diminish them. Still, it would be nice to see an improved procurement process for all services. The current system is breaking the bank.

Unraveling the mission requirements and theaters of operations could lead to some improvement in service cooperation and coordination. Let the Army have the Air Force's cargo plane and mobility aircraft and they could use them as they need them, right?
A separate service command might be in order for the land based ICBM's, as no one else has that mission or technical requirements but I see massive over lap between USAF, Navy and Marines when it comes to close air support, air superiority, and airborne control.

None of the services have exactly covered themselves in glory with respect to procurement. Consider the Army's Crusader howitzer, the Comanche helicopter, or the whole Future Combat Systems project. The Navy can claim the DDG-1000, Littoral Combat ships, and the A-12. The Marines have AAAV to their name, as well as some awfully expensive programs like V-22 and the AH-1Z/UH-1Y upgrades.

Agreed. Aren't ground attack (including bombers), cargo transport and surveillance really there to support the Army? How is ground attack from an airplane really any different than artillery? The Marines have a good model, and it's one that should be considered for the Army.

Air Force and Navy pilots who served in Korea and Vietnam may differ with your contention about WWII being the last time we saw "serious" air combat.
I contend that future air to air combat, as far as potential adversaries go, could be serious with China. The Russians are getting their act together in aircraft and capabilities too, so don't count them out.

In both of those cases, air power was decisive in obtaining a cease fire while ground forces were stuck in a quagmire. The Korean War ceasefire came about when Eisenhower threatened the Chinese with atomic strikes (and the Air Force was the only branch capable of delivering nukes at that point.) The Paris Peace Accords came about after the Air Force pounded North Vietnam in Linebacker II. Air power can't occupy territory like ground troops, but has proven to be a very effective, often much cheaper means of enforcing national policies. You can see a similar pattern with Bosnia, Kosovo, and Libya. That kind of capability is developed with an independent air force. The Soviet/Russian combined arms model has never developed anything like it.

I read somewhere that for the cost of the 2000's wars we could buy 2 more Earth's. I love how military geeks drool over buying $5 billion dollar aircraft carriers and 1000's of F-22's. I'm waiting for the $10 million dollar paper clips and if they create more university jobs.

Fold the Air Force into the Navy and the Army and the Pentagon procurement will be reformed...
Yep the Marine Corps and the National Guard have been fine examples of "reformed" procurement! What´s the Fly Away Unit Cost for a LRIP 7 F-35B? And that Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle has been doing ok, right?
If someone believes that folding the USAF into the Army and the Navy would somehow improve the Pentagon procurement process take a good look at the Marine Corps... Gold plated Stealth Supersonic STVOL Strike Fighters, yep, thats them.
Facepalm.

Most of the critics view only the application end of power. Without the enormous logistic train behind the point there is no pointy end. The vast industrial arena supporting the Air Force MRO unrelated to the sister services is what makes the weapon carriers (that's all airplanes and missiles are - weapon delivery vehicles) available when it is appropriate to apply weapons to targets.

The idea of integrating it into the Army is preposterous. It is a concept that people write books about so they can live well.
Surely no wisdom includes this as policy.

Rather than simply suggest folding the Air Force back into the Army & Navy, I'd suggest a complete reexamination of the structure of all of the Services.

Put all of the assets on the table, as well as all of the missions (including space reconnaissance & intel), and simply ask "If we ignore how we've traditionally done things, look at our assets and missions for the 21st Century, and build an organizational structure from scratch, how would that structure look?"

What if the services were to remain separate entities but streamline the whole military procurement process through one administrative entity instead of 5 individual ones? Same rules across the board. Same definitions and taxonomy so contractors could deal with one set of standards. Let the services still state their mission needs and objectives but make the bidding process and purchasing process independent. That minimizes the contractor's ability to influence any one branch of service leadership and allows for coordinated procurement.
Culturally speaking I think the services could not be blended well. The Air Force may have been created out of the Army in 1947 but they are so far away from those origins now that it's incompatible. Porsche and Volkswagen come from the same roots but you wouldn't expect them to still have compatible cultures either.

This is worthy of discussion, especially when one reviews the average age of the USAF fleet and wonders where all that money goes. There is little political support for a major change right now, but maybe more obvious idea is doable -- Abolish the Air Guard. Details here: http://www.g2mil.com/AirGuard.htm

Cuts will soon leave very few aircraft in the Air Guard. There are lots of Air Guard airbases and "wings" with no aircraft!

If the objective of this exercise is to streamline the armed forces, it might be time to look at the Marine Corps. The last major amphibious assault was conducted in 1950, and the Marines' other missions are all duplicates of the other services. The existence of the Marines drives the procurement and operation of an expensive fleet of amphibious assault ships, and their requirements have driven acquisition of the V-22 and applied many of the constraints present in the design of the F-35.

Three weeks after joining the army in August 1947 I woke up in the air force. It was the 18th of September, 1947. I don't recall a birthday celebration and my 13-week training at Lackland (now an air force base) went on as usual. But I did spend my four years on air force bases rather than army camps. The meals were no doubt the same in both.

To be as ridiculous as Prof. Farley: Anything that floats or sinks in water = Navy: Anything that walks, crawls or drives on dirt = Army: Anything that flies in the air or space = Air Force. Fold the Marines into the Army. Fold the Coast Guard into the Navy. This would make the services work together, cut costs, and everything will be right for our acedemic experts on the military - who likely never served a day in the armed forces.

It would be foolish to consider eliminating the world's most dominant aerospace force. The United States Air Force provides America an asymmetrical warfighting advantage in today and tomorrow's battlespace (land, sea, air, space, & cyber). China and Russia recognize this fact and are investing and re-asserting themselves in an attempt to diminish the very dominance we enjoy - and frankly take for granted.

Perhaps the interference of our "Pork Barrel" Congress should be investigated. The way we procure weapons systems and year-to-year sustaining requirements for our valued Armed Services can be compared to a publicly traded company CEO asking the stock holders to approve their next year's operational budget!!! Then going through endless rounds of questions, challenges and reviews while the "companies" department managers attempt to run their day-to-day business. Probably would result in less efficient operations, lower profitability and late-to-market new products and services!!!

I am a Vietnam era USAF pilot. I have provide support missions for each of our Services. In my experience each of the Services provide a valuable mission segment. While each of the Services usually understands the overall mission objective, each has a much evolved and uniquely their own way to deliver results. The traditions that have brought the USA to the world power status and the one the that gets the "911" call us is US!!!

Leave the DOD and Services to do their job - they GET IT!!! Lets go after the Congress and their Lobby Buddies - I think you might find some "Pork" that will help trim not only DOD budgets but every other government organization!!!

The defense bureaucracy has, by far and away, the largest discretionary budget slice not allocated to fixed social programs. If you want to cut pork, kill a bunch of too-slow-to-die civilians.

If you wonder why the U.S. armed forces could not scramble jets to New York in time to stop 9/11, had a gapped carrier coverage in the IO which prevented us from dropping a single bomb on AfG for more than 30 days, or took 10+ years to find ONE MAN when we had him coming up on radio within a 2 mile box, or even simply refuses to guard our borders from half a million persons per year crossing them, illegally, with 83 IQs and an appetite for social welfare, then perhaps it's time we did indeed cut the services to the bone, so that we can bring home enough of them to protect us rather than pretending to be bully cops for the rest of the planet's best interests.

I'm sure it would make the Chinese feel better not to have to deal with a 'Pacific Pivot' into their SOI when we wouldn't let them within a country mile of our Monroe doctrine hemisphere.

Vietnam was a disgrace. Officers who should have fallen on their swords refused to stand up and be counted. And so we bombed truck parks instead of airfields. Refused to risk flying into Chinese airspace to cut to the Paul Doumer and Dragon's Jaw bridges. Wouldn't make political targets like the Vietnamese parliament primary targets. Indeed, refused, for quite awhile to bomb even such critical targets as SA-2 sites within 20 miles of Hanoi _at all_.

All of which would be considered patently ridiculous today.

Why is it that it took six years to decide to close the only major SPOD which was delivering advanced technology into that stone age culture? Why didn't someone suggest dropping the coffer dams whose flooding would have made North Vietnam's existing agriculture (labor) crisis into a true starvation one?

Why didn't the USAF stop flying RHIP lead shooter doctrine on rigid, fluid four, tactical formations, even when the USN brought a couple of F-8s with no radar weapons to show them what loose deuce/double attack could do and utterly humiliated the local 8th TFW 'worlds largest distributor of MiG parts'?

Why did it take so long to figure out that the quick lock combat mode was feeding bad CW to the Sparrows as FSL never did and that this, along with a too-slow Teaball system was what was costing us so many mission kills to MiGs that should have been dead meat under proper BVR doctrine? Did nobody explain that the loss of 5 jets and an Aussie gunboat to BVR shots doesn't compare to 250+ F-105s lost to combined AAA and SAMs because the F-4s couldn't accompany them for want of EW or break the MiG formations before the merge?

No. The Services are not a fantastic hallmark of advance military thinking. They are a bunch of thugs beating up third world wannabes and doing a damn slow, clumsy, job of it.

[Offensive comment deleted. --Editor]

We have an army that cannot deploy in less than 90 days and is about to go to 'Tiered' Readiness as little more than a home station garrison force. We have a Navy that hasn't clue one how to beat the DF-21D to break into A2AD/ICD bastions with their 15 billion dollar floating target matrix.

And we have a USAF that thinks an 'almost' as good as F-16 level flight and weapons load performance is somehow made up for by 'kewl apps' which could be just as readily installed on ANY other jet.

The Marines cannot seem to field a replacement assault rifle, the USAr will not even try.

Nobody acknowledges the fact that Northrop Grumman did a 108KW stable beam forming test on their solid state laser _in 2010_ and now has passed the weaponization threshold out to 5-7km. Nobody talks about what a good 'fighter' the 10ft, 300lb, 500nm ranging MALD-J could be if it was launched, enmasse, from truck catapults rather than runways.

" If you want to cut pork, kill a bunch of too-slow-to-die civilians.
[Quotation of deleted offensive comment removed. --Editor]"

If you want to destroy your credibility which includes any possible merit deserving ideas you might have had, then you make bigoted statements like that to firmly, indelibly establish the quality of your character sir. Shame on you.

There is nothing the Air Force does that could not be competently done (and prior to 1947, WAS done) by the Army and Navy.

The creation of a separate Air Force was a politically motivated (it helped in the fight for the B-36, a weapon that was never used in combat, versus larger aircraft carriers, as an example) and not done because of any military necessity.

The Army did a fine job of strategic bombing in WWII, up to and including the first and hopefully only use of atomic weapons.

For the Army to have to go outside its chain of command to beg for fixed-wing strike assets is insane- how much money has been wasted to try to make Apaches do the job of the A-10, for example?

This was a gutsy article and no doubt the professor will be pilloried by armchair warriors (and those who depend on a separate air arm for their slice of the government $$ pie) for having the temerity to speak such 'heresies'.

But the astonishing waste of resources (and let's face it, less effective support for the ones who matter most in any war, the infantry) that inter-service rivalries and duplication of missions bring, needs to end.

In 1914 the perspicacious British Army separated out its aviation element (the Royal Flying Corps), similarly the Royal Navy its air element to form the Royal Air Force; Why? the simple answer was different war fighting doctrines! At one time or another, each service has had problems because of inadequate or non-existent war doctrines; vide, US employment of attack helicopters since Viet Nam. The good professor's argument is flawed; procurement failure is about moving requirement goalposts, is about military procurers not understanding complex systems, is about military procurers not getting to grips with who is the system of systems design authority! Each service represents a centre of excellence for that category; Army, Navy, and Air. The old chestnut of one service trying to usurp another service simply does not wash. What is needed to be effective in battle is leadership (this includes the procurement executive), understanding the true nature of each service's war fighting doctrine, engineering excellence, and better procurement.

A fast jet pilot understands how to deliver his ordnance for air defence or ground attack, just as well as a naval gunnery officer, or artillery officer understand their tasks operational, it matters not whether the pilot is of a light blue hue or dark blue hue; carrier (or organic air) air defence does not have same doctrine as defending sovereign air space; and so on...

I will probably produce a longer-form response. However, if you read Farley's book you will find a whole lot of references to Clausewitz. Without trying to knock his contributions to military doctrine, it is perhaps relevant to note that Clausewitz popped his clogs two years after the Rainhill Trials - the first demonstration of practical steam locomotives. The land wars that Clausewitz knew were not far removed from the land wars of Greece and Rome. Technology changes things in all sorts of ways.

Let's look at technology. Arguments to support the supposition:
Congress in its wisdom has mandated in law that the US Air Force provide the US Army with air support. The US Air Force has succeeded sometimes, and other times there has been some gaps in interpretation of specific support requirements and customer concerns were not always the driving factor, even today. Examples/arguments:

Air Transport: The US Air Force has not always treated customer requirements with the appropriate fidelity. Customer interpretation of what that support requirement should look like, particularly in the area of logistical air transport, and specifically in Tactical Air Transport (96 hours is good enough) applies. The entire Direct Battlefield Airlift Support question with respect to Time Sensitive/Mission Critical cargo, and the whole C-27J debacle, is a case in point . . . and the problem persists. The USAF will argue the point, but the new computer driven robot parachute system will never pick up casualties. Even the US Navy must provide its own air transport for critical and essential supplies, parts and personnel (C-40A Clipper Navy Unique Fleet Essential Airlift (NUFEA) mission). The C-40A squadrons are operated by the Navy Reserve and DO meet the need with the appropriate expediency and fidelity to meet fleet operational support requirements. Parts are usually waiting in port by the time the ship pulls in, or the VRC Squadrons move them the last distance to deployed units underway. The US Air Force is unable, ill equipped, and uninterested in doing this. If we are moving tons of cargo half way around the globe then USTRANSCOM does it faster than anyone else, and usually that is aboard USAF heavy airlifters. This specific task is one in which the USAF provides adequate support.

Combat Air Support (CAS): The A-1 Skyraider and the A-10 Thunderbolt II are the two CAS success stories, and the A-10 is on its way out with no comparable replacement. The Skyraider was the best success story because it was designed to task, had a long persistence on station, operated by more than one service, and extremely affective at its mission when employing precision aerial gunnery. A fast jet will never do that. The fast jets persistence problem can be mitigated with aerial refueling, but cannot absorb comparable damage, and in the A-10’s case, is operated by one service. The A-10 replacement should incorporate the uniqueness of the A-10 design and CAS specific requirements, and be available to all services with a common training and logistics support system. The F-15E Strike Eagle and F-16s can create a lot of damage, but precision at those speeds with “Danger Close” is a gamble. The F-15C is equaled only by the F-22 Raptor, and gets the attention of every foe. Land based fighter interceptors is a mission at which the USAF excels.

Air Defense/Fighters: Most of the Continental United States Air Defense Intercept Zone (CONUS ADIZ) is defended by National Guard and Air Force Reserve Squadrons, and they do that job well. These aircraft are Air Combat Maneuvering (ACM) platforms (Fighters) that sometimes can double for CAS support in a pinch, but by no means replace the capabilities of the A-10C “Warthog” Thunderbolt II. The US Navy has its own Combat Air Patrol (CAP) mission aircraft, and at times the Marine Air Ground Task Force (MAGTF) will do the same with whichever fighter they have present. Since the US Navy Carrier Strike Groups (CSGs) and Amphibious Ready Groups (ARGs) can cover about 70% of the planet, and bring their own airfields, perhaps the argument can be made that US Navy and Marine aircraft can go to land bases, but the opposite situation with USAF aircraft going shipboard is not true, with the exception of helicopters and CV-22 Ospreys. If the US Air Force were to acquire F-35Bs perhaps this operational limitation could change. This is an area for improvement.

Heavy Bombers: This is a US Air Force mission that no one else can do with current equipment. However, any service could provide the personnel to accomplish this mission given training.
Land Based ICBM: The TRIAD has been working and we should not fix something that is no broken. However, all services could provide the manning to accomplish that mission given training.

North American Air Defense Command: The bulk of NORAD is USAF equipment and infrastructure. However, any service could provide the personnel to accomplish this mission given training.

Space: The bulk of the US Space Command is USAF equipment and infrastructure. However, any service could provide the personnel to accomplish this mission given training.

If the US Navy comes up with a Sixth Generation Stealth Fighter aircraft that can be manned/unmanned, looks a lot like the F-14 Tomcat operationally (range and Beyond Visual Range capability), and perhaps STOVL capable, and the USAFis still around, then the USAF should buy them and cross deck, or the US Navy should absorb that USAF mission. My My . . . how Red Flag would change.

What a joke! There's no freaking way that the big wheel of government is ever gonna dismantle the air Force. Notta !
Firstly its tentacles run far to deeply rooted in the mfg mainframe of society. The governmental personnel cuts, payouts, etc etc would be a logistics nightmare for decades. It would cause an incredible market crash as well. The wheel of government must keep on turning but it's direction must return to that of actually listening to what the people are saying. And serving us in that manner, rather than the dictatorial attitude they now have. I'm rather sick of the tolerant corrupt government society we have become.

And why not just get rid of the Army and Navy and Marines and Coast Guard too. We'll just fold them all up and call the whole thing the U.S. Military. How about folding the Army, Navy, and Marine air wings into the Air Force and let the Air Force supply aircraft and personnel to them?

Because the USAF doesn't care about helping out the other branches of the military. If the Fighter Jock Mafia got a hold of those Air Wings. Logistics would be take a nose dive or be non existent. They would look for excuses to get rid of the Apache, The Black Hawk, AH-1Z Viper, Super Huey, the Lakota, the CH-53, the recently upgraded Harrier and the Super Hornet. As soon as possible and decades before their ready be mothballed.
Then cancel the Future Vertical Lift Program. The A-10 is a example that that they really would try to do it. Instead trying to secure the needs of the other branches. They would just buy more V-22's and F-35's to line the pockets of contractors and secure cushy jobs for retiring Generals.

I was just highlighting how rediculous this article is. Just as you think it unfathomable to have the Air Force manage operations for the other branches, it seems just as ludicrous to expect the Marines, Army, and Navy to provide the right kinds of services the Air Force currently does.

I have some issues with the idea as follows:
The idea does not address several issues which would definitely shape the future if such a plan were implemented:
The first is span of control. Each service has enough trouble managing it's own (now rapidly shrinking) size especially in internal coms, too many chiefs and not enough Indians (they are the ones who know how to throw the spear). there are no suggestions forthcoming about this all to obvious issue and its impact on the resulting larger organization, causing me to wonder to what extent this has been thought out. More important and not discussed is the issue of culture, i.e. what change means, what is lost, folding that into plans to unify the services. To give an example of what I mean, look at what happened when the USAF decided to effectively kill Strategic Air Command. The lack of transition of culture and corporate knowledge resulted in repeated major security violations involving nuclear weapons handling. These were core principles in the SAC culture for a reason, yet the reason was lost, with very negative results.. This was not forseen or prepared for by the folks that made it happen. Extrapolate that into blending the forces together and a potential horror story can emerge. Political infighting, resistance to change (we are human beings nonetheless) and trying to figure it out on the fly because we fail to prepare for the inevitable, and the massive COST of doing such a thing haven't even been mentioned and must be. We suffer most of the issues that we do because we have a top down leadership crisis. A massive reorg will leave us with the same issues that would hurt us more then than now from the infighting alone. Only solving that issue in advance would pave the way for such a thing, advisable or not. Putting such a thing in motion without due diligence would be a disaster. We are being gutted as we speak. Who would pay for this? Beware of false economies!
Respectfully yours,

I respectfully disagree with the author's premise that the overlap of our services' air capabilities, i.e. "five-plus air forces", is a negative. Redundancy of air power can provide important back-stop and augmentation for the fighting forces during conflict. The 1947 Key West Conference, establishing roles and responsibilities for the branches, played an important part in predicting the capabilities necessary for our defense and the execution of warfare in the nuclear age. Most Air Force capabilities cannot and should not be assumed by the other branches. First and foremost is strategic airlift, closely followed by the two legs of our nuclear triad, homeland air defense, strategic and tactical ISR, air superiority, deep strike, close air support, CSAR and many other Air Force missions. Take your pick on which roles the Army, Navy, Marines and even Coast Guard should assume. Identification of acquisition priorities by the Air Staff appears to be shortcoming. We have F-22s and are buying F-35s but where is the C-5 replacement? Why are tanker crews flying 50-plus year old aircraft, and ditto with the strategic bomber fleet? Why argue over a legacy CAS airplane when there should have been a replacement already fielded? It seems the priorities and funding should go first where there is no capability overlap from another branch. The Air Force is here to stay- and this through a Marine's lens, but needs to put its house in order.

First, if the goal is to improve procurement by changing the process by which procurement decisions are made, it isn't clear that reducing the number of services will help. The DoD has all the clout needed to change any process associated with actual procurement. Each time it has acted to change the procurement process in the recent past it has acted in such a way that attempts to make one process fit all procurement problems. There needs to be some uniformity across the procurement community, but the procurement processes needed to assure that a space-based program involving the procurement of one or two very complex items every five- to twenty-years had better be very different from the process applied to the procurement of a hand-held assault weapon potentially purchased by the thousands each year for decades. Almost everything is different about the nature of those procurements and one size process does not serve either set of needs very well. Today, there is too much focus in the DoD on the uniformity of the procurement process and too little focus on sharpening the processes needed to manage each unique set of procurement problems.

In my opinion, making military procurement a real career path for military officers rather than just one more in a series of two- to three-year rotations in the development of a military career would have far more beneficial impact on procurement efficiency than tinkering with process. Increasing the competence and experience of the men and women who have the responsibility for spending our money wisely and well would, in my opinion, also be far more effective than playing with the basic structure of the military. Some specialization is inevitable and reducing the number of stand-alone elements will just move the specialties from one house to another.

Second, if the argument is that we need to improve cross mission support, removing one or more of the stand-alone elements involved in cross support operations could potentially help. But, without a serious study of the time period before the creation of a stand-alone Air Force, the two world wars, that includes a comprehensive comparison of the external threats faced then and now, the result could look more like reducing the number of lifeboats on the Titanic rather than just rearranging the deck chairs.

Excellent reply. I was involved in a major planning compilation of Navy/Marine assets in the 80s to develop a list of all equipment to meet all DOD plans and identify friendly and hostile areas to deploy air assets. This had to include even the size of the containers to transport all equipment to the area down to the smallest embarkation boxes. A big undertaking that hadn't been defined before. After this was uploaded into a computer by my staff and distributed so it could be reviewed and adjusted by any notional mix of aircraft a big light came on at NAVAIR and Marine Air. This was at the formation of MAGTAF for the 1st time (Marine Air Ground Task Force). I you do not have a close understanding of the "beans, bullets, and bandages" it takes to deploy an air element and personal for a 30 day time or 90 day period you are wasting the aircraft and personal! The procurement procedures for any end item, system or system of systems better be clearly understood before full rate production of an aircraft is approved. Realistic MTBF (mean time before failure) rates must be identified for all aircraft support material (SE) and SE for SE. With out this the aircraft won't leave the ground at sometime. Getting the establishment at all levels on the same page for this is difficult.
Having this for all aircraft will establish a realistic annual and/or 5 year budget line. I was later involved in the budget line reviews where this was apparent. The program office isn't aware of all aircraft being delivered by some serial number sequence within the lot buy. This can effect support equipment. Test flying, back seat in fixed wing fast movers to assess aviation electronics systems and the upgrades was enlightening. Being a mainframe computer operater and programmer gave me another perspective for the computer control of modern aircraft fixed wing, rotor wing and transport. We must get the right support and provide it to the people flying and maintain all air assets and the SE.

I personally think the Professor who wrote this article should concentrate on teaching more common sense to the college graduates, from what I seen over the years from sea to shining sea many of the graduates lack in common sense while they excell in degree thinking.
Just an observation, the maintainers in all branches of the military and the ground pounders get the job done and most times better if not managed by a college graduate. Maybe not always the case. I don't want to paint a bad picture of all but there is a large amount that think they know it all after graduating.